Home education in and around Glasgow, Scotland

Building traditions

In order to mark the Autumn Equinox, we made our, now traditional, Stone Soup. For this activity, everyone brings something to add to a pot and we make and share the resulting soup.

My family had just been to our allotment so chose one of our rather large courgettes to bring with us.

The group met at the local meadow, found some wooden pallets to be a makeshift food preparation surface, lit a fire and set to chopping up the veg.

We started the soup on a camping stove but, once the fire was hot enough, the pot was transferred to the fire.

While we waited for the soup to cook we told the story of Stone Soup – about a traveller who comes to a village where food is scarce and starts to make “stone soup” by boiling a stone in water. The traveller asks the villagers for first an onion to enhance the soup and then a carrot and a potato etc until each of the villagers have contributed something to the pot. They all ate together and enjoy a wonderful meal that they could not have cooked alone.